If the Yankees get their way in the off-season pursuit of pitchers, their starting rotation next April will consist of CC Sabathia, A.J. Burnett or Derek Lowe, Chien-Ming Wang, Joba Chamberlain and Andy Pettitte. Check those names again. Notice any missing? What about Hughes and Kennedy?
As much of a fuss as the Yankees made over Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy a year ago, those two young pitchers seem to have become an afterthought. They were the do-not-touch tandem of a year ago, and now you can look as closely as you want, and you won’t find them.
A year ago it was What? Trade Hughes and/or Kennedy for Johan Santana? Are you crazy? This year it’s more like Who? Let me check to see if they even play here.
“They definitely fit in,” general manager Brian Cashman said when asked about the Yankees’ plans for Hughes and Kennedy. But he added, “Where they fit depends on how our winter goes. Are they guys who will compete for the rotation or be insurance policies? It depends on how our winter goes. Our projections on them are the same. And in the eyes of the industry, they’re getting the same amount of play they got last year.”
No one, however, is offering a Johan Santana for one of the young pitchers or both. That’s what the Minnesota Twins did last winter, offering the Yankees Santana for a package of four players that included Hughes or Kennedy; the Yankees’ young center fielder Melky Cabrera and Jeff Marquez, a minor league pitcher.
Hank Steinbrenner, son of George, wanted to make the trade, but Cashman didn’t, prefering to retain the young players, and Steinbrenner bowed to Cashman’s wishes.
The decision proved disastrous. The Yankees came up short on pitching and failed to make the post-season for the first time since 1993.
Cabrera, who had performed solidly his first two years with the Yankees, had a disappointing season and, hitting, .115 for the first two weeks of August, was sent to the minors. He could regain his starting job in center next season, but he could also lose it to Brett Gardner, who as a rookie this year batted .228 and had a .299 slugging percentage in 42 games.
Marquez was also disappointing and was included in the recent trade for Nick Swisher. But Hughes and Kennedy were the major disappointments.
Neither one won a game for the Yankees, Hughes suffering four losses and a 9.00 earned run average in six April starts before fracturing a rib and Kennedy posting a 0-4 record with an 8.17 e.r.a. in 9 starts and 1 relief appearance.
“One underperformed and one never had a chance because of injury,” Cashman said.
“Now Hughes is making up for lost time and getting his innings in. He’s pitching in the Arizona Fall League and doing very well. Kennedy has had two starts in Puerto Rico and done very well down there.”
No matter how either pitcher performs in fall or winter baseball he does not figure to be in the Yankees’ starting rotation next April. For that to happen, Sabathia would most likely have to decide he doesn’t like money and Pettitte would have to reject whatever salary smaller than $16 million the Yankees offer him.
Cashman acknowledged that the Yankees are taking a step back with Hughes and Kennedy, saying it’s “unlike last year when they zoomed through the system, pitched well in the stretch drive and were counted on for this year.”
No matter how well Hughes and Kennedy pitched in their limited work in 2007, the Yankees were foolish for counting on them in 2008, at least not both for the rotation. How could Cashman really think the Yankees could win the division title or just make the playoffs with two inexperienced pitchers in the rotation?
Had he traded one of them, on the other hand, for Santana, the Yankees might have won enough games to extend their post-season appearance streak to 14. Santana, after all, nearly pitched the Mets into the playoffs despite their brutal bullpen and lack of timely hitting.
But Cashman stubbornly held onto the young pitchers, planning for the future while hoping for a couple of bolts of lightning this year. He refused in an interview earlier this week to say that Hughes and Kennedy were untouchable last year, though they certainly seemed to be. No one is untouchable, Cashman said; it’s just that some players are more touchable than others.
Explaining his position a year ago, Cashman said his thinking was, “We’d like to have the right guys make our rotation and we think these guys are the right guys.”
Given that they turned out to be the wrong guys, did that make them more touchable this year? “I’ve never said who’s more touchable than others,” Cashman said, then added, “There’s a reason they’re still here. I’ve said no quite often.”
No one apparently is asking for Cabrera in a package deal this time around, but Cashman said the Yankees aren’t giving up on him at the age of 24.
“Melky might well be our everyday center fielder,” he said. “It’s between him and Brett Gardner. He struggled this past year, but he’s better than he was this year. He got out of the gate strong, but then he had a lack of offensive production and instead of taking a step forward he took a step backward.”
Cabrera hit .299 in April, then plunged to .234 and .206 in the next two months. “He’s still young,” Cashman said. “He’s a switch-hitter, plus he took steps forward defensively.”
Cabrera has a better chance of being the regular center fielder than Hughes and Kennedy have of being in the rotation. That puts the Yankees ahead of where they were a year ago.